About Data Games

Welcome to our site and blog about data games. This is a blog about our work on defining on defining and exploring the concept of data games. We will discuss the prototype games and content generators we create, but also other examples of data games or related work that we find in the literature. But first: what are data games?

A data game is a game that allows the player(s) to explore data that is derived from outside the game, by transforming the data into something that can be played with. In other words, games as a form of interactive data visualisation. We believe that games, through their procedural and interactive nature, can provide possibilities for visualisation over and beyond traditional methods. Data games differ from most other types of serious and educational games in that they do not (intentionally) have an agenda; they are tools for the player to use to explore data with as few constraints as possible. This implies that the player, to the greatest extent possible, should be able to choose both what data to use and what in the data is important.